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ROCHESTER WAYS 



Charles Mulford Robinson 




Scrantom, Wetmore & Company 
Rochester, N. Y. 



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82397 

JLibrary of Congress] 

7 wo Copies Received I 
NOV 30 1900 

j Copyright ontry 

SECOND COPV 

De!:v«H<; to 

ORDttf DIVISION 

OEC 1 1900 



COPYRIGHT, 1900 
BY CHARLES MULFORD ROBINSON 



Limited edition, from movable types 



^ 



-A 



^ 



The Genesee Press 

The Post Express Printing Co 

Rochester, N. Y. 

1900 



>6 



The following pages seek to give a glimpse of 
the intimate side of Rochester life at the turning 
point of the century. Such is their only claim to 
historical importance. A small — in this case, a 
very small — part of the sketches have appeared 
from time to time in the writer's department of a 
local paper. It might be added that the present 
collection's companionship to " Third Ward 
Traits," on which it bases a hope of kindly recep- 
tion, can be described as nearly resembling that 

of the city to the little mother district. 

C. M. R. 



CONTENTS 

n Street. pagb 

The Main Street Crowd, ... 7 

l Corners. 

East Side and West, On Parade, What's 
Bred i' the Bone, . . . . 15 

..ity Envieth Not. 

Donations, Charity Spectacles, " Twigs," 25 
Churches and Clubs, 

Rochester Trolleys. 

Some Peculiarities, How They Labor, 
Sunday and Holiday Cars, A Famous 
Line, 38 

What We See. 

A Real Flower City, The Finest View, . 50 

Whom We See. 

Heroes, Home Friends, Street Friends, 
Passing Acquaintances, . . -55 

Olla Podrida. 

Powers Block, The Mercury, Skating 
on the Aqueduct, Driving, Bicycles, 
" Ice ! " Flower Catalogues, . . 62 



ROCHESTER WAYS 

I. 

/l&ain Street 

In the matter of pageants a new custom has 
lately come to Rochester. It is to rope off 
Main street and clear it of traffic. The cus- 
tom has a civic merit. It gives to Rochester- 
ians a chance to think about the street, and to 
note its dignity and what degree of beauty it 
has. In the pressure and turmoil of traffic 
this may seem little ; but who is there, having 
from the vantage point of stand or window the 
view up and down the street on such an 
occasion, that does not feel some pride at the 
spectacle ? The long thoroughfare is gay at 
these times with flags and bunting from end 
to end. The fine proportions, which are 
emphasized by the gleaming car tracks taper- 
ing in perspective ; the clean pavement ; the 
fluttering flags; the life and motion of the 



rope-restrained, impatient crowd, all this 
makes an urban prospect of uncommon merit 
for a city of the size of Rochester. 

No doubt, however, Rochesterians, realizing 
how truly Main street is the dominant chord 
in the song of the city's life, read into the 
scene more than a visitor could. How many 
things, indeed, a resident may see as he looks 
up and down the long street — how many 
things that would be invisible to strangers ! 
To him it does not represent only a highway, 
a street important merely because he takes it 
when going to his work and when going home 
again, or when going to his amusements and 
his shopping. In his imagination there are 
surely afforded visions of other pageants — 
military, civic, funereal, and circus — sweeping 
down that street which has heard the blare of 
every band and the tramp of all the feet that 
ever have marched in Rochester. A small 
city has that advantage that the major part of 
all the spectacular side of its life is crowded, 
with certainty, into one or two of its thorough- 
fares. 



He will see other things, too, than pageants. 
His remembering eyes, rising to the gayly 
dressed facades, will see in their place golden 
store fronts, glowing windows, and below them 
a gleaming pavement burnished by Novem- 
ber's setting sun. And then, perhaps, the 
vision will change into a picture of the same 
street swept by winter storms, the clinging 
snow putting pure new sculpture on the gray 
facades, half veiling in white mist the double 
street lights, and hiding the tops of buildings 
in swirling clouds of snow. 

In the long wait for the procession, the 
resident of Rochester will also pick out many 
a point in the street to dwell upon in half 
amused thought and tender affection. Start- 
ing at the Four Corners, that heart of the 
city — its pulsing then strangely stilled — he 
notes, with sure remnant of traditional pride, 
the curving corner of Powers Block. In fancy 
he sees the long double row of lighted street 
lamps, and the line of trolley cars starting at a 
whistle's sighing signal in the evening, like a 
lot of children trooping away to bed. His 

9 



gaze pauses at the Front street corner, with 
its mingled record of good and ill, the good 
crowding away the evil twice certainly in each 
year, when the market wagons of Christmas 
and Thanksgiving choke the rollicking way 
with cheer. He pictures the old Liberty Pole, 
only a memory now, on the summit of the hill 
— that hill where an extra horse used to help 
the bob-cars up, with gay jingle of bells, steam- 
ing of flanks, and prodigious kicking of legs, 
the man astride the helper like an outrider to 
the rickety chariot. The glory of the hill's 
summit is still, he recollects, as of old, the 
glory of the dawn, in the rush and clatter of 
market business, and of the Christmas-tide, 
with its city forest of evergreens when Christ- 
mas trees are before and behind you, and on 
either side of you, filling the air with their 
delicate, nerve-tingling aroma. 

Oh, you strangers, who look up our Main 
street at these times, you do not see the half 
that is visible to the loving, reminiscent eyes 
of Rochester! 



10 



Now the procession has passed, the ropes 
are lowered, and the crowd surges freely. 

Vehicles throng the way, the 
Gbe dfcafn . . , £ ^ / n 

insistent clans: of the trolley 
Street Growo* . ® . , . , 

gong rises to high windows, 

and the song of the street has begun again. 
What a song that is, varying from season to 
season, from day to day, from hour to hour. 
In the music of the Main street crowd is writ- 
ten the story of Rochester's life. 

The crowd passes up and down the Hill in 
endless procession. It is a Hill to us in our 
acres of flatness, but the stranger hardly sees 
and never mentions the rise, finding his sub- 
ject for wonder in the bridge, built up like old 
London's. The crowds pass ceaselessly, day 
in and day out. The street is our Broadway — 
and more. It is our Piccadilly, Strand, and 
Regent street thrown in one. Except in name, 
it is our Boulevard, and Main street strollers 
are Rochester's " boulevardiers." Saturday 
nights you should see them choke the street — 
all of our villagers, and they are thousands, 
shopping or promenading. 



There is no lover of the city but learns to 
read and love the music of the daily crowd 
in this street. The song changes with the 
seasons and the days. There is a song for 
summer and a song for winter, a song for 
autumn and one for spring. There is a martial 
swing to the music on Independence day, there 
is the scream of victory on election night, and 
on Christmas eve the notes crowd closely, the 
chords are full and strong, and the music rolls 
in an anthem that is the best the street can 
sing. Every year the people listen for it. 

Then there is the daily song. Go forth early 
in the morning that you may hear the opening 
strains, when the players are fresh and the air 
is crisp and cool. The notes hurry at allegro 
time, and there is a swing to the music that 
makes it inspiring. Very gradually does the 
melody change, and it is not until ten o'clock 
that the march of the workers is varied with 
an interweaving of light and playful airs. But 
with the striking of the big bell of the city hall 
at twelve o'clock, and the blowing of the 
whistles, the dominant motif appears again. 

12 



There is that joyous call to dinner which great 
cities never hear at noon. The tempo is swift 
and glad then, as the workers hurry forth. In 
early afternoon it changes to the slow, volup- 
tuous march of those who have feasted well. 
Then the motif is lost in the chorus of women, 
with its slow time and crowded notes, and the 
gay little arias that run far up in the treble. 
As the day closes, the chorus dies away. The 
workers' motif is heard again, the time slow, 
with the basso accompaniment very strong, 
and a minor chord appearing in the theme. 
The music seems now to drag. It sings the 
song of the weary, and the feet that tripped 
along so easily and swiftly in the morning are 
shuffling now on much worn walks. The set- 
ting sun has thrown long shafts of light on the 
tired street, the tall buildings have cast shad- 
ows that reach far. The darkness lights the 
street lamps as it rides down the eastern hill, 
stars twinkle where there had been windows- 
dragon-eyed cars round distant corners screech- 
ingly. The song of the day changes into that 
of the evening. Twilight falls and the music 



grows soft, singing of love, pleasure and wine, 
dwindling away at last. 

And at any time of the day, if you would 
hear the music at its loudest, if you would be 
in the very midst of the orchestra, you will 
stand at the Four Corners, with the players all 
around you. 



14 



II. 

1Ri\>al Corners* 

The Four Corners are still held to be the 
Charing Cross of Rochester, whence distances 
are measured and where appointments are 
made, but they are not without a rival. The 
strenuous Apostle has, in fact, a very worthy 
memorial in the activity at the St. Paul street 
corner. This happens also to be the place in 
town where, notoriously, the devil is busiest 
with skirts and hats. At the very top of the 
hill there are the Seven Corners. 

Now the Seven Corners owe much of their 
fame to a department store. It advertised 
them, giving to the locality a reputation that 
mere press of business would not have be- 
stowed for many years. The memory of the 
old Liberty Pole had afforded designation 
enough, until the department store sought to 

15 



emphasize the advantage of its site by out- 
cornering the beloved Four Corners. The 
site was not much respected until then, for it 
was mainly notable as a conspicuous civic 
failure, as a lost opportunity, the little triangle 
that some of the corners enclose being covered 
by a low, old-fashioned building where fish is 
sold, when it ought to have had a bit of sculp- 
ture — as was from time to time suggested — or 
at least have been given over to turf and 
flowers. 

The Seven Corners, however, shamelessly 
ignoring their remissness, have acquired a 
reputation. Back of this fact there is some- 
thing more than the zeal of the advertiser; 
there is that deeper significance of a new 
evidence of the rivalry of East Side and West. 
This is one of the most vital factors of Roch- 
ester life. The Four Corners are indisputably 
a jewel in the West Side crown. The East 
Side will not be undone. It would fain knock 
the pretensions of the Four Corners into a 
cocked hat — and, behold, there are Seven 
Corners ! So they are pitted against one 

16 



another : The Four Corners, solid, substantial, 
with hereditary glamor ; the Seven, numerous, 
vigorous, blatant. There is no corner on 
corners. 

You find the rivalry of the sites constantly 
cropping out. When Front street, from its 
intersection of Main, is crowded with produce 
and poultry wagons on the eves of Thanks- 
giving and Christmas, is there not a conscious 
attempt to rival the traditional " corner grocery 
and market " — somewhat more than seven- 
fold glorified on the East Side corners ? Ask 
yourself if a loyal West Sider would then 
climb the hill to buy his turkey. When a 
beautiful temporary arch was erected on the 
Seven Corners site to welcome a returning 
hero, was not the neighborhood of the Four 
Corners honored, also, with the official 
reviewing stand? Thus was peace bought 
for the triumph. 



17 



The rivalry of the Corners is but a detail, 
we have said, of the rivalry of East Side and 

West. It is extraordinary 
East Sifce , ... a *. a 

how, with good-natured ve- 

anO West. ' 6 

neer, this competition perme- 
ates the life of the town. In some communi- 
ties the like conditions are frankly met by 
calling the districts different cities, as Alle- 
gheny and Pittsburg ; in others there is attempt 
to reconcile such competition by strongly dis- 
tinguishing the character of the different sides 
of the river, as the Quartier differs in Paris 
from the right bank of the Seine, as the 
boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn differ 
in Greater New York. But with us the two 
sides of the river are very eager to be precisely 
alike in all matters, except that on the like 
lines each would fain outdo the other. The 
rivalry of the Corners is typical. 

It is not merely, then, a social emulation. 
The products, for instance, that at present 
are making Rochester most famous are kodaks 
and flowers. The kodak works are on the 
West Side, the nurseries are on the East. The 



four largest commercial buildings are evenly 
apportioned ; the University, which was orig- 
inally on the West Side, has been secured by 
the East Side ; but a new Mechanics' Institute 
has risen on the West Side to equalize educa- 
tional claims. It is pointed out, also, in this 
connection, that if the department stores with 
their frivolous fashions are on the East Side, 
the West still has the leading book-store. 
Each side of the river has its hospital and its 
seminary, you can go to the lake by trolley or 
boulevard on either side, the parks are divided 
as evenly as possible ; the principal Protestant 
cemetery is on one side, the Catholic is on the 
other; society, above or below the turf, has 
taken neither side exclusively to itself. 

On the latter point, a powerful light is 

thrown by an incident which is minor as yet, 

but rich in possibilities. It used 

^ to be the custom, when there 

IParaoe. , . , ,. 

was to be a more or less fashion- 
able concert at Music Hall, to put the 
tickets on advance sale at a Four Corners 

19 



book-store, for the convenience of those to 
whom the box-office might prove out of the 
way. Repeatedly of late, however, the dia- 
grams have been evenly divided, half left at a 
Four Corners book-store and half at a store at 
the Seven Corners. The division is exactly 
through the middle of the house. 

There results a demarcation of the audience 
that is not only remarkable in itself, but of 
extraordinary social potentiality. One half of 
the house is occupied by people from the West 
side of the river, the other half by people from 
the East side. East Avenue and the Third 
Ward are elbow to elbow only on the dividing 
line. One who knows Rochester fairly well 
can follow the line with certainty. The 
isolated exceptions are so rare that they must 
feel like cats in a strange garret. Now and 
then a Third Warder will be on the wrong side 
of the house — for him, but in such a case good 
clothes usually reveal that he has gone there 
only at the price of a dinner. On the other 
side of the house an East Sider will occasion- 
ally sit, sometimes a little uncomfortably, with 

20 



wistful glances toward the friends who are be- 
yond the divide, and somewhat more rarely 
with a satisfied smile of reminiscence, as 
though the prodigal had found home again. 

Now, Rochester is still so village-like in 
many particulars that one cannot observe this 
condition, pleasant enough in its beginning, 
without trepidation, trembling for the develop- 
ments to which such an opportunity may give 
rise. On account of the rivalry, may not both 
sides of the river go to entertainments in far 
greater numbers than they want to, each from 
the fear that the other will make the better 
showing? If the entertainment be a bit 
instructive, if to attend would indicate ordi- 
narily a taste for music or a good mind, we 
can see in fancy both sides of Music Hall 
crowded in future with audiences that are 
jealous of each other. They would rather be 
bored than not appear. And if, on some 
occasion, the East Side, for instance, should 
make the better showing of the two, so that all 
its seats would be filled, while there were 
vacant chairs across the divide, we can picture 

21 



more East Siders coming and standing in the 
aisles — their aisles — rather than take the 
seats over the line, so that the triumph might 
be more complete, more obvious, the mortifica- 
tion of the older district more overwhelming. 
And perhaps there is a danger greater even 
than this, in social heartburnings and fraud. 
We have suggested that you can tell when a 
Third Warder has dined on the East Side, or 
vice versa. Behold, then, an opportunity I 
Mr. and Mrs. A. wish their neighbors, the Bs., 
to think that they dined out. They buy their 
seats on the wrong side of the house, next to 
creditable acquaintances, and go to the show 
in their best clothes. Result, consternation in 
the hearts of the Bs. ; social triumph in the 
heads of the As. ; surprise on the part of the 
creditable acquaintances when they discover 
some friends who seem offended because not 
invited to a dinner that was never given ! 
From this evil, which may spread to a really 
dreadful extent, it is but a step to rivalry in 
dressing. Each side may try to outdo the 
other in bravery of attire, with heartaches and 

22 



final bankruptcy as the pitiful consequence. 
Does the picture look overdrawn, do we 
seem to exaggerate ? In a little hall, where 
everyone knows everyone else, and where to 
social rivalry is added the jealousy of residence 
districts in a city that has not yet outgrown 
many of its village characteristics, to what 
lengths may not so dangerous an opportunity 
lead? 

It should be said here, however, that there 

are two sure signs by which you may know a 

Third Warder. Draw him 

out to talk of the towns past, 

V tbe JBone. , , .„ . n ., „ 

and he will tell you — they all 

do — that there was a time when he knew every- 
body in Rochester that rode in a carriage. 
Then you should thoughtfully nod your head 
and sigh. If you have no chance to talk, dog 
his steps until he comes to a canal bridge, as 
he presently will. He will cross the road just 
before he reaches the bridge or when he is on 
it. No one knows why Third Warders do 
this, though there are theories aplenty. One 

23 



accounts for the phenomenon by the saving of 
some feet of distance, old bridges having been 
slightly narrower than the street. Another 
explains that the habit is formed in a wish to 
economize time when the bridge goes up. At 
all events, even in winter, when the bridge 
never rises and no cross-walk is shoveled there, 
little diagonal paths are worn pathetically 
through the snow. 

Third Warders, successfully making homes 
of mansions that resemble Grecian temples, 
take also the Greeks' egotistic point of view. 
If they are going over the river — the Roches- 
ter way is always " over," not " across " — they 
vaguely define their destination as the " East 
Side," as if assuming all other regions than 
their own to be barbarian. But the East 
Siders explicitly say, when returning these 
calls, that they are going to the Third Ward — 
as the old " barbarians " used to talk with 
proud definiteness of journeying to Athens. 



24 



III. 

Cbaritp Envietb IFlot, 

Yet Rochester is nothing if not charitable. 
If you are wise and not too witty, or if you are 
rich and not too much amazed at it, or if you 
have ancestors of accepted glory, you may 
hope for prominence ; but though you have 
none of these things, and have a pet charity 
and are diligent in its behalf, you need have 
no fear. Your hobby may be trusted to take 
you where Pegasus might stumble, riches' 
wings seem clipped, or blood prove thinner 
than water. " Charity never faileth." The 
beautiful part of this is that Rochester is given 
over to good works. We all are zealous for 
something, and with perfect good will for the 
objects of others' zeal. It is understood that 
the help we give to benevolent, or even to 
religious, institutions will be returned in kind, 

25 



and Charity brings us all together. In its 
blessed behalf are distinctions of East Side 
and West Side forgotten. Our church and our 
charity envieth not. 

It has been said by visitors to Rochester 
that the most characteristic local feature is that 

_ , whirligig of human and social 

Donations. , • u- u n -r, 

dynamics which we call a Dona- 
tion. They wonder that with the varied 
demands of a city's wants upon our sympathies, 
there can yet be such interest and enthusiasm, 
and wholesome and wide cooperation, as then 
for a common cause. They do not understand 
that Rochester has never learned to grow old ; 
that formalism, dignity, city reserve are yet to 
be practiced here. 

Nothing illustrates better this peculiarity 
than our Donation. In another city it would 
have been called a charity bazaar or monster 
fair, but to give that name to it here would 
endanger its charm of individuality, and would 
prove one a stranger to Rochester ways. The 
arena on such an occasion is one of the sights 

26 



of the town. The great crowd, the gaiety and 
cheerfulness of the scene, this harmonious 
working together of all classes of people and 
sets of society in behalf of a worthy object, 
form one of the inspiring sights of every 
Rochester autumn. 

And the invalids fare no less well than the 
active workers, for if one must be sick, there 
is no time in Rochester like a Donation time. 
On those days flowers and dainties are sure to 
come from friends. One must buy something, 
you know, and if one can help the suffering in 
the abstract and concrete at once — so much the 
better. So pleads the Rochester conscience. 
The mere annual recurrence of these donations 
is among their distinctions. A very big city 
might suffer such an upheaval once in a 
decade, while it is the essence of the pleasant 
simplicity of village life to give way, year after 
year, to this community exuberance and enthus- 
iasm. 

Consider, if you would realize the town's 
upheaval, where the Donations are held. Long 
ago it was seen that the benefitted institution 

27 



was no place for such a debauch of sympa- 
thetic interest, but since then even an aban- 
doned roller skating rink and a political con- 
vention hall have crowded the women. The 
new post-office was opened with a Donation, 
and the big federal structure throbbed from 
basement to attic with philanthropic energy ; 
a business building that had been occupied by 
a dry goods store, whose hundreds of custom- 
ers found ample room on several floors, 
cramped the departments of a Donation that 
was open for three days. During that time, 
be it remembered, society women sat behind 
the very counters where " clerk girls " had sat 
long and patiently, and perhaps they waited on 
those girls. It was a rare chance for the latter 
to enjoy a turning of the tables, and it is possi- 
ble that those on each side of the counter 
learned a few lessons. Even a Club house 
has been given up to Donations. 

Does it all pay ? A local asking of that 
question may be frankly admitted every year, 
by many tired workers and by scores of others 
who do not like to see those they love ex- 

28 



hausted. Perhaps as much money could be 
raised by different means, but the theory in 
Rochester has been that money is not all. 
Abolish the Donation and would there not 
come a loss to many hearts of a certain per- 
sonal interest in the charity, a loss to the 
charity of a brief but considerable prominence 
before the public that, repeated annually, must 
be of value ? Without such occasions to bring 
us all together on the common level of good 
works and common sympathy, would there not 
be increased social narrowness, reaching dis- 
astrously and far ? If there are some who feel 
that it is better for their moral nature not to 
treat a charity as if it were a department 
store, to bargain with, the present system pro- 
vides a table for them, as for everybody else. 
There, making outright gifts as quietly as they 
please, they yet can experience the exhilaration 
of contagious enthusiasm, securing a better 
knowledge than before of the sympathy and 
good heartedness of their neighbors. In 
Rochester, except for a few days every year, 
we do think our Donations are justified. 

29 



To show again how East Side and West 

Side come together through the charity which 

envieth not, something might be 

CbaCftB said of the spectacular enter- 

Spectacles* . ^ , u f *. at- 
tainments that set the town 

agape for a series of years. There were 
kirmesses and festivals, and through these for 
a little while Stageland's painted scenes be- 
came a part of Rochester's real world. But it 
was without a dividing river. 

Otherwise the world was not as different as 
one might fancy. The people who met behind 
the curtain were in the habit of seeing each 
other at receptions and dances. They had 
agreed to perform, not necessarily because 
they could act, but because they had been per- 
suaded that the programme would seem 
stronger for their names. With a carelessness, 
then, that could have been born only of a 
modest belief in hopeless incapacity, most of 
the performers strolled into the glare of the 
calcium lights, blinked through their simple 
parts, and hastened out again to resume an 
interrupted conversation in the wings. A 

30 



series of pageants made us callous. The 
nightly assemblies behind the scenes were 
transformed into conventional social functions. 
That is why the painted world differed so little 
from the real. The man and maid who usually 
wander to the conservatory, retired without a 
questioning word to a hidden canvas tree. 
There, as he leaned on the wabbling trunk and 
she pulled the cloth vine-leaves, they took up 
the conversation exactly where they had left it 
when, under a real palm and oleander, some 
one had claimed her for a dance. Reginald, 
in war paint, lingered at the door with the 
modest Angelina, now in short skirts and 
wooden shoes, and by a psychical triumph 
that was almost sublime she appeared to him 
as in a ball gown and he to her as in faultless 
evening dress. No need here to say that the 
performances were good, the spectacles beau- 
tiful. That is history long since written ; but 
our charity covers a multitude of other things 
than sins. 



31 



There is a better evidence, however, of the 
broadly cementing power of Rochester charity 

"TLvoiaa " t * ian are amateur performances. 
These, on whatever scale, are alike 
in effect. It is afforded by the " Twigs." In 
Twigs the Flower City has a feature as dis- 
tinctive and unique as in Donations. The 
Twigs are sewing societies whose members, 
numbering in each from a dozen to a score or 
over, meet at two-week periods — except in 
summer — have luncheon together, and sew 
for the daily needs of the City Hospital. The 
luncheons are held in turn at the members' 
houses and are confined to two, or at most to 
three, courses, for it is believed that the sap 
which runs through all the Twigs and keeps 
them alive is not the food but the gossip. 

The Twigs are a power. To the cause they 
represent they are like campaign clubs, and 
the Donation is their general rally. They 
were formed years ago in loving memory of a 
devoted friend of the hospital. The oldest 
is called the " Parent Stem." There follow a 
series designated by numbers in the order of 

32 



their foundation, and then have come Twigs 
with special names, as the Hemlock, which 
now has withered. New organizations were 
formed. The idea spreading from the mothers 
to the daughters, the " First Graft " appeared. 
Then came the " Second Graft." Mean- 
while the young girls confessed themselves in 
name as well as in formal deed to be " Chips 
of the Old Block." " Splinters " were formed 
among the little girls ; " Shavings " among the 
children. With nearly a score of these socie- 
ties, averaging perhaps twenty members each, 
it is clear that the Twigs become a factor in 
the social life of the town. They try always 
to meet on the same day, a Friday, and every 
other week that unlucky day is known through 
the length and breadth of the community as 
" Twig day." It is barren of social function 
until after the meetings, which end at four 
o'clock. The Twigs are called by the lunch- 
eons, which are at one, and the cars just before 
that hour are filled with women with little sew- 
ing bags. " Where does your Twig meet ? " 
is a colloquial greeting that must astonish 

33 



passengers who do not know Rochester ways. 
That day the men meet down town or at the 
clubs, or go home for a meal with the children. 
That night they have the news of the town, 
from the latest book to the newest betrothal. 

We have said that Rochester charity extends 
to the churches. When a new synagogue was 

opened here with the clergymen 
Gburcbes of several Christian faiths on the 
Clubs platform, the fact was commented 

upon throughout the country. But 
to Rochesterians the event presented nothing 
extraordinary. It seemed no more than was 
to be expected, for we have had pretty much 
everything here in the way of civilization's 
religions, from the " Rochester Knockings " 
— heard almost as far as the Minutemen's shot 
at Concord — to the Holy Rollers on Cobb's 
Hill, and we have been kind to all of these. 
The church militant, then, we neither have nor 
wish. And yet there are said to be twenty-five 
hundred men in Bible classes in Rochester, 
and one of the classes has the largest enroll- 

34 



ment in the United States — these facts giving 
to us a proud preeminence. Time was when 
the rivalry between the Bible classes, some- 
times of different sects, was incongruously 
attested, rumor says, in wagers ; but even that 
period has passed. 

The oldest Protestant churches are the First 
Presbyterian and St. Luke's Episcopal, and at 
the social affairs of these you can hardly tell, 
in the mixing of congregations, which church 
is which. They draw for the most part from 
friends and neighbors of long standing, and 
because these give to good talk and to famously 
good suppers a precedence over dogma, their 
friendship escapes wreck on reefs of Apostolic 
Succession. Where mother churches thus 
pleasantly lead the way, others are sure to 
follow. Prayer meeting night is Wednesday, 
all agreeing as unitedly on that as do the 
Twigs upon the Friday afternoon ; and it is 
again considered better taste, when practica- 
ble, to provide social distractions for any other 
time than that. 

And yet the stranger must not fancy that 

35 



Wednesday night is dull. Nor does the spice 
go out of Sunday morning though anathemas 
be so rarely hurled at the religious doctrines 
of one's friends. It sounds cynical, but it is 
nearly true, to say that in many churches the 
service only " opens " the meeting. As a 
national political convention is opened with 
prayer, so in our churches — a little more per- 
haps than in other cities, since here everyone 
is zealous for a charity — the benediction is a 
signal for real business to begin. The scene 
becomes that of a clearing house. It is a pro- 
duce exchange with some cash transactions 
and heavy calls for future delivery. It is a 
reception, a recruiting station, and a caucus. 
Of clubs Rochester has many. There have 
been visitors here who say they have seen no 
city more pervaded by organizations. Roch- 
ester women yearn to be wise hardly less 
eagerly than they yearn to do good, and toward 
both goals they flutter in innumerable small 
groups of kindred spirits. Lately a central 
representative organization has been formed, 
to which all the women's clubs send delegates. 

36 



It ought to become a power for good. Out- 
side of that, it is significant to observe, the 
Ethical Club is the largest association, with an 
average attendance of several hundred mem- 
bers. There is, in fact, no surer way to im- 
press a Rochester resident with the size of the 
town than to read to him the names of some 
leading women in various organizations. He 
is amazed to find how many brilliant, kind- 
hearted, and clever women he doesn't know. 
In the Third Ward whist has a firm hold and 
there have been times of euchre excitement ; 
but that is a dear and queer little district to 
be judged by itself. It hardly is typical of the 
city. In clubs even more than in charities 
Rochester shows how wide awake it is, how 
in touch with modern movements of thought 
and aspiration, and how reverent for all that is 
best in the long past. We are very like a city 
from the standpoint of our clubs. 



37 



IV. 
IRocfoester ZTrolless* 

There are several peculiarities about Roch- 
ester's electric ways that must impress stran- 
gers. All lines pass the Four Corners. If 
you are anywhere in or near 

Some Rochester and can get on a 

Ipeculfarfttes. „ . , j , , 

trolley car, it may be depended 

upon to bring you to what is the town's north 
star, the iron front of Powers Block attracting 
as surely as if it were a magnet. There has 
already been reference to the custom of send- 
ing the cars out together from the Corners, at 
a whistle's signal, in the evening. They wait 
for that, it coming at the quarter hours, and 
troop away in long, solemn lines, a row of them 
for each of the four cardinal points of the com- 
pass and each with a trail of pursuing human- 
ity. Since all the cars pass the Four Corners, 
and transfers are given on all, it follows that 
the great transfer point is there, and that 



if you stand there, where the interchange- 
able tracks make a wonderful network of 
interesting mechanism — there was a turn- 
table in the old horse-car days — you can study 
the Rochester trolley system in a concen- 
trated form. You can even hear a continuous 
bumpity-bump, which is still, though in les- 
sening degree, a characteristic, in penalty for 
our having had one of the first electric systems 
in the country. 

Another impressive discovery is that none 
of the city lines and only one of the suburban 
run the familiar open car with transverse seats. 
That is because in Rochester we have a pretty 
way, on the park-like residence streets, of 
throwing the car tracks inside the curb, one 
track on each side of the road, leaving the 
latter unbroken for driving and sending the 
cars over the greensward very close to the 
trees. It is quite bucolic, and when one sees 
what we call our " open cars," with seats 
arranged for couples, it looks Arcadian. With 
the great number of lake and bay resorts 
reached by trolley, there is doubtless a de- 

39 



mand for this sort of thing and electric court- 
ships are a summer reality with us. The 
romance inside the cars is not, however, hinted 
outside, unless in the recurring and scandal- 
ous coupling of the names " St. Paul and 
Sophia." The titles of the lines are attractive 
by their mysterious unexpectedness. St. Paul 
and Sophia are frankly bound for the New 
York Central station. Clinton and Jefferson 
is an odd coupling even for politics. There is 
South and Lake, though the lake is north; 
and North and West, which is an uncommon 
order in which to begin to name points of the 
compass. The words " street " and " avenue " 
are, indeed, so uniformly omitted that the signs 
must seem cabalistic to one who does not 
know them. At the Four Corners the electric 
railway company has an office, and as the cars 
come opposite to it and pause for the shuffle 
of passengers, the conductors fly to the office 
with transfer envelopes. And over and over, 
at this one spot where Rochester tries to be 
city-like, they will stop good-naturedly to mail a 
letter for a passenger. 

40 



But the noise and press of traffic at this 

point, aided so much by the congestion of the 

cars, does still seem metropoli- 

_, . ^ tan ; and one who stands there, 

Xaoor* 

watching the trolleys come and 

go, finds himself exclaiming, " What toilers the 
street cars are!" It seems as if the concen- 
tration of population were their daily purpose. 
All day they are patiently shifting and col- 
lecting. 

When they come empty from the barns in 
the early morning, men, women, and children 
are scattered widely and thinly over the city in 
thousands of homes. The cars turn to their 
task with fine energy. Each brings its quota 
of passengers to the city's center, leaves them, 
scurries back for another load, and soon re- 
turns with the new crowd it has gathered. 
The scores and scores of cars, working busily 
and journeying in a dozen directions, and mak- 
ing many trips, quickly achieve results. The 
men, who are the first care, are well collected 
down town by nine o'clock, so that the fac- 
tories and commercial buildings, which may 

41 



be compared to great packing boxes, are filled. 
In the meantime also, and incidentally, the 
cars have picked up the little children and 
hustled them into the schools until those 
" boxes " are just as full as they can be. Then 
comes the filling of the stores. When the chil- 
dren and men have been gathered, the cease- 
lessly toiling cars bring along loads of women. 
Thus, by mid-morning, a fair proportion of the 
city's population has been placed in the city's 
workrooms. But women are slippery things. 
They steal rides back; you can't keep them 
away from home; and before the cars realize 
it, as many are riding outward as are coming 
in. Still the cars labor until, with what seems 
a preconcerted movement, at the signal of 
many whistles and the sounding of a bell, men, 
women, and children make an onslaught, to the 
accompaniment of the song of the street's 
sonorous " March of the Workers." The help- 
less cars go loaded back. 

Yet they do not give up the struggle. They 
are patient, long suffering. With clanging 
gongs they entice the men once more from 

42 



home, and running swiftly and tirelessly they 
soon again fill up the "boxes" in the city's 
center, fill up the schools, and bring back the 
slippery women. Once more the cars have 
made progress in their mighty task, but they 
do not rest. If any woman announces that 
she will, absolutely, stay " At Home " on that 
afternoon, the cars find it out. They gather 
women here and there from outlying streets 
and pack them into that " At Home " until its 
rooms are as crowded as any of the city's dry 
goods stores. But at 5 o'clock the whistles 
blow again their dreaded signal. The on- 
slaught is renewed, and twice more is the 
charge repeated at calls to the attack at 5:30 
and 6 o'clock. The cars now journey back 
heavily ladened. It becomes a losing battle. 
The day is lost. They make one heroic effort 
about 8 o'clock, bringing great loads to the 
theatres, but this is a last struggle ; it seems 
to sap the remnant of their strength ; and 
thereafter, all the evening, you see the people 
going homeward in unchecked companies. 
The final rout take place when the theatres 
43 



close. At one a. m. the last retreat is sounded. 
It is a long day's heroic struggle : Yet with 
dawn it will begin again. 

The effort is not in the least discreditable. 

The world's work is done nowadays through 

association; and on Sundays 

t> U nt^ *a * the cars try just as hard t0 
pack the people into churches 

in the morning. On afternoons of the warm 
and pleasant Sundays they seek to take them 
to the country, and succeed wonderfully well. 
Speaking popularly rather than socially, it is a 
Rochester way, indeed, to go to the lake or 
country on summer Sunday afternoons. The 
scene at the Four Corners at these times is 
really striking, and one whose like was not an- 
ticipated a dozen years ago. A pleasure-seek- 
ing multitude lines the sidewalks waiting for 
the cars. The whole conception of Sunday 
observance seems for the moment to have 
changed, but the long, broad streets are nearly 
empty of other vehicles. There is no business 
traffic. A Puritanical quiet reigns except on 

44 



the trolley lines. The passengers, having 
reached the terminus, do various things. Some 
desecrate the day; but most, walking along 
the lake shore, strolling in the parks, resting 
beneath the trees, have a peaceful Sunday. 
They can say, paraphrasing in a modern sense 
the psalmist's words, that the day maketh them 
to lie down in green pastures, leadeth them 
beside the still waters, restoreth the soul. 
Whether this be good religion is still ques- 
tioned; but if the people can be trusted to 
judge for themselves, such a method of wor- 
ship is not disapproved. 

There can be no doubt that the picnic habit 
has grown upon us in the last few years. Per- 
haps it has grown in other places. Here at 
least, with the constant Sunday practice, it is 
very marked. A holiday means a day by the 
lakeside or in the parks. It means the coun- 
try, by bicycle or trolley. After the morning 
parade the crowd moves out together. Main 
and State streets are choked with cars. Every- 
thing that has wheels which will fit on the track 
is used — old cars with the paint worn off, new 

45 



cars with the paint not on, big cars and little 
cars, long ones and trailers — all are in use. 
Still there are not enough and the crowd rushes, 
surges, and jams. It is significant of this that 
the holiday query is no longer, " What shall we 
do?" but, "Where shall we go?" A holiday 
means a people on the move. And with us 
in Rochester conditions give to this fact a 
peculiar scenic attraction, for perhaps two- 
thirds of the travelers are transferred, or start 
from, " down town." One can see the migra- 
tion of a people. 

Of all our urban car lines, the most famous 
is probably the Park Avenue. Its claims to 

distinction are many. The line 
B 3f aniOU6 is the most unc0 mfortable. Its 

track is uneven ; exclusive of 
the switches it rounds nearly twenty corners, 
and the cars are often over full. Moreover, 
the new cars have curved cane seats, with the 
springs very tight, so that a woman who would 
keep her balance on them needs to have each 
muscle on a strain, and has almost the experi- 

46 



ence of riding on a barrel. Yet the line is 
socially patronized ; and the genial conversa- 
tion there carried on, amid tetering, rolling 
seats, and crashing windows, is something of a 
triumph. 

In respect to social position, the University 
Avenue line is the Park Avenue's closest rival, 
since these two, between them, cater to East 
Avenue travel and connect the Third Ward 
with the Twelfth. The exclusive avenue, ad- 
mitting no car tracks upon itself, runs diago- 
nally through adjacent street systems. There 
results a problem in paralleling, which the Uni- 
versity Avenue line solves by traveling two 
sides of one long triangle, and the Park Avenue 
by zigzaging through a series of short trian- 
gles. The latter, therefore, approaches close 
to "the" avenue at many points, and it is the 
line to the traps of the Country Club. Thus 
it has the social advantage. 

Long ago, when horse cars made the tortu- 
ous journey upon it even slower than now, 
there was a familiar bit of facetiousness in 
Rochester to the effect that the street car com- 

47 



pany was considering the advisability of run- 
ning sleeping cars on its Park Avenue line. A 
little later, in seeming unconsciousness of the 
popular sneer, the company actually did put 
on cars that bore conspicuously the imprint of 
the Pullman company, and the old pleasantry, 
that had appeared to be entering upon its dot- 
age, had a new lease of life. This particular 
car line always has been a popular butt for 
comment. It is said that when the Twelfth 
Ward wants gossip fairly screamed into its ear 
it boards the Park Avenue car ; and the incon- 
gruous suggestion that a hostess from one of 
the pretty streets in the East Side group that 
is so oddly and aspiringly named for col- 
leges should take to the car, when she 
wishes really to be " At Home," is not with- 
out an apparent justification in fact. She 
would see friends from both sides of the river ; 
and she would need only to set up a tea table, 
for this, in spite of drawbacks, is notoriously 
the " chattiest" line in the town. As they say 
on ocean steamers, however, it would be 
weather for racks all the time. 

48 



This consideration is a reminder that when 
the speedier trolley supplanted the horse car, 
the old joke about the sleeping car on this line 
had a substitute. It was the shameless query 
of the first stander to the second stander as to 
the number of " laps " he made to the mile. 
The question is a painful one on the route. 
Why were two red lights chosen as the distin- 
guishing mark of these cars, it is asked, if not 
for a danger signal ? And indeed, to see these 
coming down the Hill, gives to the experienced 
traveler the feeling of a mariner who watches 
a ship make port in safety after tempestuous 
voyaging. But it is a merit of the Park Ave- 
nue line — we should do it the justice of saying — 
that its sudden swoops have a part in keeping 
our Rochester ways informal. A society that 
has met on these cars couldn't be stiff. 



Mbat We See. 

We like to talk, and even better to have vis- 
itors talk, of the beauty of Rochester. The 
city is pretty. Its detached 

£\ IKeai houses with their ample grounds, 

fflower Cits. .. . ,. , . ^ F * , ' 

its tree-lined streets, the shrubs 

and flowers that in common ownership orna- 
ment the public way through some of the newer 
districts, give excuse enough for the name 
" Flower City," without regard to the nurser- 
ies. There is a social, even a psychological, 
significance, more important to us than the 
commercial, in the recent change of spelling 
from " Flour " to " Flower." The community 
is larger and busier than it ever has been be- 
fore, but it has learned that beauty is better than 
bigness. As in Florence, which is the old 
" Flower City " of Italy, the civic pride and 
wish is high. We are glad to be rich for the 

50 



beauty that leisure, pausing to dream of, can 
work for, and that money will buy. 

There is a good deal for us still to learn. 
Some day we may not plant poles for overhead 
wires in the middle of flower beds, nor place 
them at intervals in a mid-street row of beau- 
tiful magnolias. It is something now for a 
city to have even the flowers and trees, in 
Rochester's joyous profusion. Ghostly stat- 
ues and red iron dogs and deer no longer pop- 
ulate the lawns of which we feel most proud. 
The private taste is leading the public ; but 
the Cogswell fountain was, indeed, spirited 
away. 

It is the general effect that impresses a 
visitor. Rochester is beautiful not for this 
street or for that district or for a special view ; 
but for its generally open, home-like air, for 
its shaded streets and unfenced gardens and 
its miles of comfortable homes. Yet the resi- 
dent, grown familiar with all this, picks out 
certain views to cherish particularly. On these 
he lets his memory dwell as Rochester's chief- 
est treasures. 

51 



Which are they ? Who can say what is the 
finest natural prospect of the town in this year 
that turns the century ? If "natural " scenery 
be understood to bar out the civic fairness of 
broad streets well paved, richly shaded, and 
built up with square, substantial houses be- 
speaking Southern hospitality, as in our old 
Third Ward ; if it shut out the like streets of 
newer districts, where the houses might be 
seaside villas in their rambling luxury and 
comfort; if it be allowed to exclude the pic- 
turesqueness of tower, chimney and steeple, 
when these are silhouetted against an evening 
sky; or if it discard the golden glory that 
autumnal haze and city smoke pour flood-like 
upon Main street on a November afternoon, 
when the weariness of the toiler rolls away in 
perception of the city of his dream ; if it except 
the beauty of the tower of new St. Paul's 
against a summer's twilight sky ; or the night 
splendor of our richest avenue with the full 
moon gleaming down on it — yet, with all these 
omissions, much still remains. 

There is the broad view from Highland Park 

52 



of the garden-like valley of the Genesee, the 
carpet of flowering shrubs rolled out at one's 
feet, the blue of the little Reservoir lake at the 
right hand, with the fountain singing in it, and 
the faint outline far away of the framing pur- 
ple hills. There is a view down the gorge of 
the river in the russet fall, when 

" The gentle wind, a sweet and passionate wooer, 
Kisses the blushing leaf and stirs up life 
Within the solemn woods of ash, deep crimsoned, 
And silver-beech, and maple, yellow-leaved." 

Then there is the summer romance of the 
narrow, winding, upper river or of the sylvan 
solitudes of the creek. There is the pastoral 
loveliness of the rolling meadows of Genesee 
Valley Park by sunlight or by moonlight. 
There is the majesty of storm-tossed Ontario ; 
the splendor of her waves dancing in an end- 
less field of blue; or their beauty as sunset 
paints them violet and tries to match their 
wondrous sober loveliness with the glory of 
a sky that throws out arms of cloud to draw 
them to its breast. There is the Dugway's 

53 



strange beauty in the riot of wild flowers ; 
there is the rush and turmoil of the swollen 
river when choked with tumbling ice, or the 
famed grandeur of its falls ; there is the gentle 
loveliness of the Bay ; there is the wierd fas- 
cination of that somber avenue of uncountable 
poplars that offers the perfect approach to a 
home of the dead ; and there is the majesty of 
the mighty trees in the grove at Sea Breeze. 
Which of all this is finest ? De gustibus non 
disputandum est. Amid the beauty even around 
flat Rochester, who can say what of all we see 
is best ? 



54 



VI. 
Timbom me See, 

If we Rochesterians have a good deal of 
natural scenery to enjoy, it must not be sup- 
posed that we have nothing else to watch. 
We could grow homesick even among the 
greatest beauties of nature. Personality can 
tug at the heartstrings more than beauty of 
lake, river and field. So, returning from travels 
far, the view from Highland Park might kindle 
the eye with kindly affection ; when a familiar 
face would set something within on fire. 

The city has had its share of greatness. In 
the councils of state and nation, on the battle- 
fields of sea and land, in the world 
* of art, books, and industry, and in 
the sphere of beneficence, Rochester's name 
has been carried to front ranks. Nor have 

55 



we always withheld from our prophets until 
after their death the dear home appreciation. 
We salute to-day our " grand old man," the 
surgeon, become in a beautiful old age " the 
father of the parks." We recognize with infor- 
mal adoption to universal kinship that daunt- 
less woman who has been so oftentimes the 
victor in the long fight for equal suffrage. 
With what pomp and circumstance of war we 
have greeted the returning soldier ; with what 
eagerness we have followed the fortune at sea 
of our heroes in the navy ! What honest pride 
is felt that Rochester, in her prominence of 
the present, lives up to the legacies of her 
past. 

If we cannot all know well the great, we yet 
have Rochester friends, cordial, eager, sym- 
pathetic in joy and sorrow. Guests 

rf , „ who come here marvel at the hearti- 
jfrfenfcs. 

ness of the welcome they receive; 

and but a little while have they been in Roch- 
ester who still are strangers here. It is said 
that this cordiality to our new comers and visi- 

56 



tors is one of the most impressive of Roches- 
ter ways. 

Distinct from those who make us proud and 
those we love, are the familiar figures of the 
street — the people whom we know 
~! tree l bv sight, if not by name. With a 
few of these the passing acquaint- 
ance has become so general that they are 
rightly deemed to be features of the town. 

Such is Blind Tom, the strangest of " sand- 
wich men." For years he has paced the 
business streets, his round, benignant face 
unchanged whether his boards announce the 
sale of clothing or reek with Scriptural warn- 
ings to urge regard for immortal souls. He 
has a shocking way of preferring texts that 
are couched in the first person, so that one 
has a scare before the reference is reached. 
But the expansively smiling face sees no 
frightened looks ; the shambling feet, on sum- 
mer days encased in slippers, shuffle on ; and 
always at the crosswalks some ready arm slips 
into Tom's to lead him through a maze of 

57 



vehicles. He is the gentlest Jeremiah that a 
city could possess, his very blindness taking 
away all sting of personal allusion from the 
warnings which he thrusts upon you. How 
can he know that you are not your neighbor ? 
Then there is the loquacious peanut man ; 
there is a lozenge vendor, known by his lavish 
handful of cough drops and a fur coat summer 
and winter; there is a gentle faced blind 
pencil-seller, led by his little girl or boy ; and 
finally there is a nomadic company that comes 
and goes, its members familiar sights for a little 
while, but passing unmissed until, some day, 
you ask yourself when such and such an one 
has been seen and realize that he has slipped 
again into the unknown whence he came. 
Beyond these are the bootblacks and news- 
boys that soon grow to be features of the 
scene. 

There is, further, a certain bridge tender. 
The picturesqueness of this urban occupation 
has been lately lessened somewhat by a change 
of mechanism substituting lift for swinging 
bridges. Yet he survives. The Erie canal is 

58 



a burlesque from a marine standpoint ; but to 
look at this guardian of its commerce you 
might think it a mighty sea. His face is burned 
and tanned by long exposure to the elements 
until its ruddiness is as the sailor's who rounds 
the Horn. And never has captain of a liner 
paced his bridge more persistently and 
anxiously than has this mariner on the bridge 
that spans the ditch. Something of the sea- 
man's air, in walk as well as look, has come 
to him in long devotion to his duty. How he 
hastens to his gong when descrying the white 
prow of a boat ; how ill concealed his import- 
ance, his excitement ; how great his impatience 
while we, his minions, hurry ! He is like the 
commander of a man-of-war, with ship in 
action. Watching the approaching vessel, 
ringing the gong, measuring with practiced 
eye the lessening distance between boat and 
bridge, he orders his craft cleared for action 
in stentorian tones. A score of times a day 
throughout the season is the scene repeated. 
He has been cheated of half the fun of life 
and dignity of office when he puts his ponder- 

59 



ous machinery in motion without making 
mortals flee. When the slow moving vessel 
is majestically passing he shouts greetings to 
its officers, and after it has become a speck on 
the horizon and the eddies in its wake have 
settled in the canal's accustomed calmness, 
then — and not until then — is a thoroughfare 
restored through his graciousness to the wait- 
ing city and does he resume his march. In 
an environment pathetically unmaritime he is 
a buccaneer-like man-of-the-sea. 

Then there are, for each of us, the familiar 

figures whose location in the street is the 

^ . human minute hand in the 

passing 

_ . . clock of our walks, r or who, 

acquaintances* , 

taken by duty regularly over 

a certain route, does not have passing acquaint- 
ances that to him are as much a part of the 
landscape as are buildings and poles ? With 
similar constancy he meets them daily in the 
same spot. Should he fail to do so, he quickens 
his pace; or, looking back, sees with grim 
amusement that they have quickened theirs. 

60 



Your lives may never blend ; it may be you 
never have introduction ; but each thinks and 
wonders a little about the other, or bows, 
perhaps, after the summer's absence — in for- 
getfulness that a made-up story is not true. 
Passing acquaintances are surely included in 
thought of home. They are the universal 
concrete image of that abstract term, our 
"city's population." 



61 



VII. 

©lla pofcrifca. 

There are a thousand things that make up 
the life of a city. From them it gains dis- 
tinctive character. The city's views, its ways, 
its people are groups of qualifying attributes 
that are incomplete unless there be added to 
them that group of factors which, if often 
accidental in origin, yet give to it a final 
moulding. 

Could one think of Rochester without 
Powers Block and tower ? When jesting 

Buffalo would jeer, it locates us as 
IPowcrs situated « at the foot of Powers 
JBlocft. 

Block " and names the city " Pow- 

ers's Corners." The jest has no sting. We 
still are loyal to the Corners ; the block, though 
disfigured by an added story and extended 
tower — because another citizen had dared 
build higher — remains a source of pride ; and 

62 



the tower is still our beacon. Where, by day, 
but on Powers tower should ball games be 
announced by flying pennant ; what vane save 
its gilded arrow should show to business men 
the wind's direction; whence but from the 
colored lights at the corners of this tower 
should the city's center throw far at evening 
its inviting gleams of warmth, festivity and 
light ? And when a gala night arrives, when 
the city is en fete in celebration, where but 
around Powers tower should hundreds of red 
and blue lights be hung to express, in popular 
thought, not the sentiments of the building's 
owners but those of all Rochester ? Powers 
Block is our municipal building far more truly 
than is the hidden city hall. 

Not far from the tower, as a crow could 
fly over the roofs of buildings, poises Roches- 
ter's god. On the tall chimney of 
>- the American Tobacco Company's 

building is Mercury. The work of 
a gifted Rochester sculptor resident in Paris, 
he stands in a conventional pose, full of life 



and grace and action, an inspiration in bronze 
to the messenger boys of earth. Light of 
step, he presses forward with upturned gaze 
and extended arm — a veritable god when the 
smoke rolls out beneath him, hiding his pro- 
saic pedestal so that he seems to stand upon 
a cloud ; or when the flying snow winds its 
filmy veil around him and shuts from view 
with swirling gusts the chimney. A deity ? 
Would boy of earth thus spurn cigarettes ? 

Far beneath him the people are at play and 

labor, and if Mercury ever drops his eyes he 

__ . . must find many a thing at 

Skating on f . , „ J T , ° , 

AW m ^ which to smile. In bright 

tbe 2lqueouct. ,'*'.„ 

winter weather he will see, 

directly below, as gay a sight as can any- 
where be found so near a city's center. This 
is the happy, swaying throng of skaters on the 
aqueduct. The sight is very dear to Roches- 
ter. It is like a public carnival, with its 
mingling of humor and of grace ; and all day 
and evening the onlookers, more numerous 
even than the skaters, stand in seried rows. 

64 



But even Mercury might sometimes frown. 
He would see such numerous pennants of soft 
coal smoke as should never be, although their 
_ . . message is of prosperity. On prin- 
cipal streets he would see such driv- 
ing and hitching of horses as is very country 
like, for Rochester — perhaps because the cen- 
ter of so great a farming district — has been 
strangely slow to learn to drive. With all the 
press of business, we have few marks of a 
great city in this matter, turning our horses 
anywhere, driving on the wrong side of the 
highway with entire disregard of danger, and 
permitting disreputable wagons to stand long 
before our proudest doors. But the bicyclists, 
in calling attention to our negligence, are 
teaching better. 

What a swarm these bicyclists are ! It has 
been said that in proportion to its size Roch- 
ester has more of them than any 
mcvciee. other dty in the country To be 

sure, here as elsewhere, the wheel has lately 
lost ground socially ; but it remains a force. 

65 



When it was more of a novelty than now there 
were some meets at Genesee Valley Park, for 
legislative purposes, and wheelmen's carnivals 
were organized at the Driving Park. These 
called together such hosts of riders — men and 
women — that their own surprise was hardly 
less than the amazement of the city. All could 
understand that the spectacle of such numbers 
was significant. 

In 1897 there was a scene that meant more. 
A strip of new pavement was opened on State 
street. It was not of much length, nor of 
great import to any except the bicyclists ; but 
for them it formed a valuable connecting link, 
both in the trip to the lake — then very popular 
— and for the regular daily ride, on business 
or pleasure, of a considerable population. 
The event was made a general celebration 
which, seen in retrospect, appears to have been 
Rochester's formal acknowledgment of the 
triumph of the wheel. The great crowds in 
the streets — throngs so dense that the ropes 
stretched along the curb could not always hold 
them back — the almost continuous illumina- 



te 



tion of buildings and residences for several 
miles, and especially the thousands of lanterns 
on Lake avenue where the asphalt had been 
laid for years, were popular tributes, not to 
the occasion, but to the riders. And no one, 
watching the progress of the procession, could 
fail to be impressed by the spectators' good 
will. Theoretically, indeed, the foes of the 
swift and silent steed should be the pedes- 
trians, the drivers and the street car com- 
panies. But the enthusiastic onlookers com- 
prised these hostile classes. The pedestrians, 
constituting the majority, did not exhibit a 
spirit of mere tolerance. Their applause was 
frequent and warm, the bicyclists advancing 
like conquering heroes between the cheering 
throngs. At every cross street wagons and 
carriages were bunched respectfully out of the 
riders' way, their occupants watching and 
approving with no suggestion of enmity 
between horse and wheel. The trolleys, 
pinned to a standstill by the crowds, were like 
little observation trains along the avenue, and 
with their bright lights formed not the least 

67 



of the decorations. Meanwhile the great pro- 
cession filed by, exemplifying in a striking 
manner the bicycle's triumphant cosmopoli- 
tanism and the rollicking spirits of its riders. 

It has seemed worth while to recall the 
scene in detail, as one of the rare popular 
festivals of the town and as illustrating Roch- 
ester's sentiment toward the bicycle. Visitors 
from hillier cities, or from communities where 
the wheel is not so common — feeling that 
Providence is sorely tempted when they dodge 
across our bicycle crowded streets — marvel 
at the good will we seem to bear to the riders. 
Perhaps the reason is that we each own a 
wheel. Certainly there is not even insistence 
on the carrying of lighted lamps, and the ordi- 
nance that requires a bell is not enforced, since 
the ringing would be continuous. 

There are other Rochester ways to note. 

How strange are those dangling bits of paste- 

<*•» t it board, square, oval, or diamond 

shaped, in delicate tints or lurid 

colors, that contain in readable letters only the 



one word, " Ice ! " It is a pathetic and more or 
less frantic appeal that hangs on the front 
piazza. Is there another city that needs ice 
as publicly as we do ? You go to make a 
formal call, and this is the chilly welcome 
when you mount the steps. You accept an 
invitation to dine, and discover that your host 
wants ice, and the de'butantes are welcomed 
into society with this freezing supplication on 
the doorpost. The house in which no ap- 
pointment of luxury is lacking frankly con- 
fesses a need of ice. Thus is our warm-hearted 
city utterly without shame in extending public 
invitations to the iceman. 

To the world at large we talk, as befitting 

the Flower City, mainly of seeds and plants. 

No other literature that comes 

J . . from Rochester is circulated so 

Catalogues. 

widely as that brilliant pam- 
phlet of optimistic promise, the Flower Cata- 
logue. Until one reads that, one couldn't 
guess to what glory of size and color plants 
attain. 



This is no mean or unworthy message which 
we send forth. To turn the thoughts of in- 
numerable Darbys and Joans to floriculture, 
to make them yearn for rose-embowered cot- 
tages and backyards that are thriving groceries; 
to change the weary housewife's dream from 
dusting cloths to lilies, is a triumph that might 
be envied by the greatest poet. Surely these 
catalogues, giving a knowledge of how to raise 
flowers, incidentally raise humanity. 

That in every scheme for Eden's successful 
restoration there must be not only gorgeous 
and mammoth plants, but a couple to love 
them, is the Flower City's furthest heard and 
most insistent message to the world. And 
the illustration of it in so many gardens on so 
many streets is one of the best loved of our 
Rochester ways. 






70 



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